Thursday, July 26, 2012

More summer fun and some preps for the school year...

Let it sit for at least an hour. The longer you let it sit, the better the bubbles. Give it a good mix, get some fun bubble wands, sit back, relax, and let the kids have a ball:)

Take a bunch of crayons, line them up on a piece of paper, tape them down. Get a hair dryer and blow close to crayons and watch it melt. Kids thought this was AWESOME.

Now as a very proud New Yorker, and growing up in the city, my knowledge of gardening was very limited. A good friend of ours helped us plant a garden and the kids have been LOVING it.

I love the fact that they can actually SEE where it comes from, hence when making a bracha, it makes sense. They see the tomatoes growing from the ground, hence, "ha-adama". It's a very cool, hands on approach to teach kids the correct blessings on foods as opposed to just coloring pictures of foods with the same bracha.

Here is our tomato plant. This tomato was picked and eaten by my daughter just seconds after I took this photo.

Our strawberry bush- this strawberry still needs a few more days, but these are the most amazing, sweetest strawberries you have ever tasted.

Our pineapple. Now you can understand why we say "ha-adama" on pineapple:)

Beets..

Now back in this post I began working on our continent boxes. It's a good thing mom and dad were world travelers before we met and got married and between my hubby and me we have a some great photos of ourselves from all over the world.

I went through these photos and took out a bunch and put them in each continent box. The only continents we both didn't get to were Australia and Antarctica. The kids love seeing photos of us in these places, it makes it very real to them.

Here is what we have so far, as I find things, I add them to the boxes:

~Israel~

(okay, Israel is not a continent, but it's our land so it deserves it's own box:)

* A book I made with images I tore out of an issue of the National Geographic

* Photos of Jewish scientist David Wakil lighting the Menorah in Antarctica

*Some cute miniatures: scarf, hat, snow flake, iglue, sled. sweater. snowman and polar bears. I know we have some penguins somewhere, just have to find them:)

~Asia~

* Russian money

* Photos of my husband in Russia

* Photos of famous Rabbi's from Russia as well as Yeshiva boys learning in Yeshiva's in Russia

* Book on Asia

* Photos of Thailand and China

* A Tanya printed in Jordan

* Miniatures of 2 Asian people and a fan

(my husband spent time in India, we are trying to dig up those photos:)

~Europe~

* Book on Europe

* Photos of mom and dad in various countries in Europe

* Photos of Menorah lightings around Europe

* Tanya printed in Italy and France

* A Picture Book of Anne Frank which you can get here, with photos of mom at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam

* Book on Raoul Wallenberg, he helped the Jews in WW2

I have Australia, Africa, North and South America and will post photos when I get a chance.

The nice thing is that you can just keep adding things as you find them.

The kids LOVE the continent boxes. They can take one and sit down and go through the photos, play with the miniatures, read the books, and all the while learning so much. I hope to make some more boxes like these but in other subjects.

2 comments:

I am very impressed with all the thought you put into your projects and the careful exectuion of each one, like the matching hard backing to all the photos in the boxes, etc. How do you have time?When do you research and make these projects?When do you run to the store to get supplies?I discover that with a lot of porjects I am considering, I realize that if I don't have supplies at home to execute it, the thought of going to a craft store for just those few ingredients with 3 kids and then cleaning up the mess make it not worth it.What's your secret?

Oh, I wish I had a secret! But I can tell you that I don't run out to the store to buy things whenever I need them- and I am also Montessori certified for Primary age kids which has taught me so much! That being said, the color coding is Montessori- and look around your house, you would be shocked to see how many things you can use. Before I bought a laminater ($18 from Costco) I used to use packing tape to laminate things! Go on Pinterest, there are so many great ideas of how to DIY without running to the store when you need things! And save magazines, brochures etc. Good Luck!

About Me

I'm a busy mom to a crew of super awesome kiddos. Please enjoy all the free printables and activities, I've had such a great time making and doing them with my kiddos in our ever changing Homeschool journey~ I'd love to hear from you and all about yours, thanks for stopping by!